After His death, did Jesus descend into hell itself or into a waiting place of the righteous souls?

This is one of those areas of Catholic tradition that is very weak, and I deal with it in my commentary on 1 Peter 3:18 to 21. There is a belief that the godly people who died in the Old Testament went to a good part of Hades and waited thousands of years for Christ to rise and release them, and I do not believe that is true. There are plenty of passages telling us the souls who died godly in the Old Testament go to purgatory or heaven; Abraham's soul is in heaven, Isaac's soul is in heaven, before Jesus rose from the dead. The word Hades is a bit of a misnomer; sometimes it refers to hell, sometimes to death, and the context tells you which, the same way Sheol works in the Old Testament. When the New Testament wants to speak of the actual place of hell it uses Gehenna. So the ones who are in Hades are the unbelievers who died and are awaiting their final judgment at the general judgment; the good souls are not there. So when it says Jesus went down to Hades, His body is in the grave and in His soul He goes down to these wicked souls and says, as you can see, I have triumphed over death, and your judgment is thus confirmed and will not change. He could not have said that unless He had actually risen; it is one thing to predict it and another to accomplish it.